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Cybersecurity – Crisis Management Plan

Details:  Your assignment is to create a crisis management plan for ACME, Inc. When constructing your plan, think about what needs to be done to protect employees, equipment, and the facilities during a crisis.

You should start by defining what is a crisis and what types of events would be covered by your plan. Use your readings this module to guide you. Write this as if you were going to give it to management to use as a basis for a real crisis management plan. Assume a risk analysis has been completed and approved. Activation Protocol: Be sure to include triggers for the crisis management plan, as the natural first response to an emergency is often paralysis. Using levels of urgency as your criterion, define the circumstances that activate a particular crisis response. In addition, explain how to escalate that response, in the event that a crisis turns out to be more serious than it first appeared

. Based on the type or location of the incident, the protocol should also direct your staff on how to respond. And, the protocol should establish some type of communication that signals the end of a crisis. Chain of Command: Include a crisis management-related organization chart in your plan, so its clear who has final authority and who reports to whom. Making a well-defined org chart supports coordination and consistency, which decentralized organizations sometimes struggle to achieve. Depending on the seriousness of the event, your plan may call for additional layers of command. For example, an emergency at one site may activate the response team and leader at that particular site, but a company-wide crisis may require a headquarters crisis team that has regional teams operating underneath it. Command Center Plan: Determine what will serve as the base of operations for the team during a crisis. In addition, indicate what supplies and utilities the team will require. In the event that the first command center is unavailable, you will also need to designate a backup command center. Please see below for complete details on setting up a command center. Response Action Plans: Perform detailed planning around how you will respond to various scenarios. This planning includes assigning responsibility for each task. Think of these response actions as modular elements that you should employ as the situation requires. Conceptualizing crises in this way makes your crisis management plan adaptable. The best plans use an all-hazard approach, meaning you dont write plans with a specific crisis in mind, but rather with all potential hazards in mind. Using this method ensures that youll have a consistent response and a team thats always ready, regardless of the nature of the incident, recommends Regina Phelps, Founder of crisis management consulting firm Emergency Management & Safety Solutions. Internal Communication Plan: Create systems and backup methods for members of the crisis management team to communicate with each other. Collect contact information for all team members as well as anyone they might need to call upon, including outside consultants and subject matter experts. You must also establish ways to disseminate urgent information to all employees, such as using a notification provider to send texts and automated calls or implementing a method for your employees to check in and report their safety and whereabouts. Determine how you will share sensitive news internally, such as a threat to the companys viability or a loss of life. In addition, dont forget to establish a schedule and mechanism for updates. External Communication Plan: Define plans for communicating with the public and key external stakeholders. Appoint a spokesperson. Write detailed instructions, including whom you will notify (e.g., media outlets in a particular geographic area). Also, draft holding statements, the details of which you can fill in later, once you have the relevant information. Prioritize your strategic communication objectives and outline talking points. Make sure your plans align with other communication efforts. Be ready to create a special website or telephone line to answer consumer or community questions. Resources: Think about everything the crisis management team might need, from hardhats to credit cards and a standby public relations advisor, and line these things up. Information resources will be especially important in a time of crisis. These resources include many kinds of stakeholder agreements, including union contracts, maps of facilities, timelines, flowcharts of key processes and procedures, supplier contracts, benefits information, and more

. Training: Being able to execute your crisis management plan quickly is paramount, and holding drills and exercises with the crisis management team is crucial to that goal. Rehearsals or even tabletop drills can reveal flaws in the plan, and practice will help the crisis team become comfortable with their individual roles and work together. Make sure to stay current by doing regular training. In addition, provide training to other staff members based on their particular jobs, such as showing a warehouse manager how to use a fire extinguisher, explaining to a production

associate how to stop an assembly line, or teaching an executive assistant how to respond to a media phone call. Review: Create a structured review process in order to schedule regular follow-up check-ins regarding your plan. As your business or the risk environment changes, you will need to update your crisis management plan. After an actual crisis, the team should analyze what went well and what did not. Identify important lessons, and implement any necessary changes. 9 pages of content Reference list